Empty room
by Linneagb
Summary: One- shot written from Carole's POV the day they buried Finn. Partly based on the song empty room by Sanna Nielsen.


**So. This just popped into my mind while listening to empty room by Sanna Nielsen. It's just a simple one- shot written from Carole's POV… I hope you like it. Oh, it's also based on that song. **

Wearing black- from the neat little hair clip holding the fringe away from my eyes put in my hair, to my shoes I was wearing all black. I still sat on my bed looking at the photo of Finn and me from his graduation day. With the thumb of the hand I held the frame with I stroke over the glass over Finn over and over again. In the other hand I held a tissue, had got to be at least number three thousands of tissues I had gone through the last week, and yet the tears never seemed to stop running down my cheeks, whenever I thought of a memory or just simply thought about my Finn.

Two days ago I hadn't had any other option then to leave my home for the first time in several days. I didn't want to but I had to go shopping and life just had to go on like it used to. There I had met an old friend of mine and her son five years old. Caleb had looked up at me- he knew about Finn and so he said. "You don't look very sad!"

When I came home I had stopped and looked myself in the mirror. For almost half an hour I just stood there and watched every detail, the green eyes, the reddish brown hair, the scar between my nose and my lip, barely visible. I still looked just like I had done before. But still I thought that- with how my heart was broken and my whole soul was falling into pieces I thought that it should be visible for others to see. But I still looked almost exactly the same, apart from the dark circles that had started to form under my eyes and the sad, distant look that was always there. To anyone who didn't know me too well- I looked exactly the same as I did before.

But they weren't there. They weren't there whenever I'd collapse wherever in the house when it was just getting too hard for me to have any control over my muscles. They weren't there when Burt would pull me up into his lap and hold me while I sobbed so hard I would throw up or almost choke. They hadn't been there when I had gotten that call and collapsed by the news that had been told after I talked my colleague into telling me then what was going on so I wouldn't have to wait until we had gotten to the hospital to receive the news. They weren't there…

They weren't there!

I looked around and put the framed photo back at my bedside table, then looked around again. Finn had moved to go to Lima College a few months before he… before he was hit by that car but…. But still the room, no, this whole house- had ever felt so empty as it had done the last week. And I knew I could fill it up with whatever without my Finn it would still be empty. The room, the house, the family.

My heart.

I finally stood up, changed into casual clothes and walked downstairs. Without saying a word to anybody I took my coat and my shoes and walked outside, down the road the mailman came walking. He greeted me happily, just like he had always done. I sighed and nodded even though I didn't even felt strong enough to give any response and then kept on walking.

The sun was shining, and there was a cold wind that forced me to pull my coat closer around me not to freeze. Walking down the road I looked around, there were a couple of children running down the street, a young couple sitting on a bench, cars passing by and a jogger out running. Everything seemed to be like it had always been. Though how could it? How could the world just keep on going when it felt as if it would all have to stop without my Finn?

I sat down on a bench buy playing area and looked around. There were children- maybe about twenty of them running around in the playing area, digging in the sand, climbing, going down the slide. The parents stood around talking to each other, someone began crying after falling and a mother came running. Everything was just as it had been fifteen years ago when I came here with Finn.

I looked around, when we had come here I had had everything so full of hopes and dreams for the future. High school, college, works, grandchildren, the list goes on and on and on. Now so much of it would never happen. So much of it had- but way too much hadn't and would never happen. I looked around again, these parents were all like I was then? Would any of them be like I was now in fifteen years?

There was no one that could tell me if either of these parents were going to be going through the same thing as I did with losing my child. But I hoped not, losing a child wasn't something I'd wish for the devil himself. The way it rips your whole heart and soul into pieces and just destroys you from the inside that you will never see your child again wasn't something that I'd wish for anybody- and yet it just had to be me!

"You okay?" I heard a voice and looked up to see my Burt standing by the bench. I knew he knew the answer to his question, I knew he knew it was a stupid question but then what was he supposed to ask? I shrugged and he came over and sat down by me with his hands shoved in his pockets. I looked up at him, he didn't say anything and I thought for something that could maybe make him understand what I was feeling.

"You know" I said at last. "People say that when you're sad it usually feels better with crying but… I have been crying for a week and it still feels as my heart is getting ripped into pieces over and over. They say it gets better with time but I don't get how this is ever going to become easier to bear without my… without my Finn." Burt sighed and looked to the playing area. "And looking at these children, it just hurts even more because I know that when we were here and I had so many dreams about the future like every parent here today has, and Finn was just another one of those running around in the sand and playing."

"I don't think it will get easier honey." Burt exclaimed. "Yet it will not always be as hard as it is now." I didn't get what Burt was telling me, I hoped so bad that he was right about this. That there might come a time where I didn't have to think about it twenty four, seven and all the time feel as if my inside was being ripped to pieces.

Tears were as usual rolling down my cheeks- Burt started rubbing my back I guess to give the comfort he could. And a boy- perhaps four or five years old came running over to a ball he had accidently kicked too far and I picked up. "Why are you sad?" He looked to me while I handed him the ball. "You're crying!" He didn't get any further than that before we heard a female voice from a few meters away coming closer.

"Finn" I flinched at the name and looked up. "How many times do I need to tell you not to talk to strangers?" I looked to the boy, to the mother, back to the boy and felt my whole body starting to tremble. Out of everyone who could have kicked their ball too long, out of every child we could have met we just happen to stumble upon a boy named Finn. And his eyes- they were so chocolate brown and so like his.

So like his…

For what seemed like just a second to me I had drifted off and all the pain was gone. I didn't want to wake up and leave this. When conscious everything hurt so much, here everything that hurt seemed to be gone. "Finn" I called out. I still couldn't see anything else but the dark but suddenly a voice broke through it.

"It's alright mum." I heard. "I'm right here. I'm not leaving you."

My eyes shot open, I lay across the bench I had earlier been sitting on with my head on Burt's arm, he smiled slightly when I looked up but gently forced me to lay still when I tried sitting up. "You were overwhelmed I think, you blacked out for a moment. Just lay still for a few minutes." I tried telling him what I had heard but not even I could catch my weak stutters as words. "It's okay… just try to relax love."

My mind said that what I had heard was a dream, hallucinating from being unconscious and too overwhelmed. But my heart protested, told me he had been there, that he had actually told me that he it was alright and that he weren't going to leave me. I wanted to trust that feeling so badly, but I didn't know if I could.

Little Finn- the boy who had been there earlier still stood there with his mother, he held the football in front of him and the mother had her arm around his shoulders. These wasn't any people I knew, or even had ever met before, but the child suddenly lifted one of his hands and stroke away a tear from my cheek. I didn't try to pull away, maybe I should have but I didn't. I had also for the moment stopped crying, maybe when I should have cried more than ever.

But I couldn't, there weren't any tears left to cry, and no energy left to take off for me to be able to move, my whole body had gone limp and I was starting to doubt if I would be able to stand up again to walk home. "Finn." Exclaimed, in an attempt to try to tell Burt what I had heard but I wasn't strong enough to go on.

"Why did you say my name?" Little Finn laid his head to the side seeming rather confused when he realized what I had said. "And how did you know my name is Finn?" I closed my eyes, then opened them again and looked up at Burt. He sighed and told little Finn and his mum what was going on.

"Her son's name was Finn." He began. "we… we buried him today." The woman gasped, little Finn only looked confused so his mum kneeled down and explained to him what it meant to bury somebody. I leaned my head heavier towards Burt's arm and he leaned forward and lightly kissed my forehead. "Do you think you'll be able to walk home love?" I hesitated, then shook my head.

"I am so, so sorry." The woman said. "If there is anything we can do… Oh I'm sorry I'm… I'm Anne, Anne Johnson. And as you know… this is Finn." She placed her hands at her Finn's shoulders. "Is there anything I can do for you now?" I weakly shook my head. Not because I didn't want to move- but because I couldn't and Burt hesitated.

"I would do it myself but I have no free hands... Could you possibly call my son and tell him to pick us up here?" I closed my eyes and didn't see anything more but I heard her answer that she could drive us herself. After some discussion between her and Burt, I felt Burt lifting me up bridal style and I rested my head against his shoulder the short way until he put me down in the car- seat in Anne's car.

When she braked I opened my eyes just enough to see we were in our driveway, Burt got out the front seat and came and lifted me up again after thanking Anne for the ride. Someone must have seen us coming up through the window because I heard the door open and then Kurt asking what had happened. I didn't hear Burt's answer- everything was starting to get so blurry, I didn't want to fall asleep- and that was something that had been very hard the last week but when I tried opening my eyes again the eyelids were just closing by themselves and I couldn't fight enough to keep them open.

When I woke up again I laid in the living room sofa, the room was all empty and I looked to the clock. It read two A.M. Everyone, except maybe Blaine and Rachel and possibly Puck had gone off home by this time, and the rest were asleep by now. I sighed and pushed myself up, what had happened earlier had come back to me just as I heard footsteps and Burt came into the room from the kitchen.

"Hey" He sat down by me, lifted his hand and stroke away a tress of the fringe that had fallen in front of my eyes. "You okay?" I laid my head to the side and then to the other side a few times to show that well… not that okay! "Do you… do you remember what happened?" I nodded. "Do you want to talk about it?" I shrugged and then looked up to him.

"Burt… honey I… I don't know what to do with myself." I said, he frowned and started to say something but I spoke before he had the time. "I… I feel so lost… I feel so empty, everything feels so empty like… this whole room and this whole house feels so empty even though Finn hadn't been living here for a long while before he… before he died." It was the first time I had managed to say those words, and I felt it shatter my heart into- if possible- even smaller pieces. "And I have no idea what to do with myself or with anyone else or with my life or anything."

"Carole." Burt took my hand and squeezed it. "I am not going to say that I understand because I don't but… all the people that were here today… we all loved Finn… and we all love you." He squeezed my hand. "And you are the strongest person I have ever met…" He was going to say more but I interrupted again.

"I don't know if I can be strong enough for this."

"Then that is alright. If you're not strong enough then we will all be there right by you and carry you and push you forward. And believe me when I say that if there is one person who will be there all the while it's Finn because he is here." Burt laid his hand on my head. "And here" he pointed to my heart. "And because of everything we got off him he is all around, to help all of us- especially you to get through things. And we will all be there, and help you find your way back again."

"What if I don't?"

"You will!" He took my upper arms and slightly shook me. "You will! And if you don't then it doesn't matter because we will all be here anyway and that is what matters." I trembled of another suppressed sob and then leaned into Burt's embrace and cried towards his shoulder. "And Finn will be there too… every step of the way so don't let yourself believe any differently."

"Burt…" I said again. "Today at the park, when I fainted I… I didn't see him but I heard his voice and he… he spoke to me and he… he said that it was alright and that he wasn't going to leave me… and it was as if I could feel him in a way that doesn't happen in dreams and… and you probably think that I'm crazy now."

"Carole." Burt took my head in between his hands and almost forced me to look at him. "I believe every word you say. And if you say that it wasn't just a dream then it wasn't just a dream. If you say that he was there then he was and if he said he wasn't going to leave you then he's not ever going to leave you." I tiredly leaned my head towards Burt's shoulder again. He had his arms around my shoulders and his hand towards my arm stroking it.

"You're never alone!" Burt began speaking again. "Do you hear me? Never ever! And you're perfectly allowed to feel and do whatever you want to deal with this and get through it- because you if anyone- will. So if you want you can shout at all of us, tell us you hate us and leave as many times as you want or just, eat everything we've got in the house because that is what he used to… then do that… we won't leave."

"Can you really imagine me eating everything we've got in the house?" The thought just seemed absurd to me, and I couldn't help to laugh. When I realized what I was doing I clapped my hands over my mouth and almost started crying again.

"Hey." Burt got off the sofa and kneeled down in front of me. "When Finn was alive, there was nothing he loved hearing more than your laugh. And if you were happy that was all that it would take for him to be happy. So don't stop okay? Because there still is nothing that makes him happier than to hear you laugh." I nodded, Burt held my hands in his and moved to sit up on the sofa again.

"I'm going out for a walk." I said and stood up and took my coat from the edge of the sofa. I just… need to be alone for a moment. Burt nodded and made no attempt to come with me while I tied my shoelaces and then grabbed my keys just in case someone would lock the door while I was out and they didn't know about that I was out and then unlocked the door and walked out in the cool night air.

I had always used to go out this time a day every now and then, the air seemed to be so easy to breathe at this time and I shoved my hands in my pockets walking down the road, walked through a block and then sat down at the same bench by the playing area in the park as earlier and looked up at the beautiful night skies and the millions of stars over my head, just as well as the moon shining bright.

Something moving caught my eye and I turned my head to look at it just in time to see a shooting star. I know that if I had seen it earlier, I had wished for this all to be over, and just be a big misunderstanding. But now I closed my eyes and whispered to myself. "Just let my Finn be safe where he is now. Just let him be happy."

And then I will be happy too.

**So… Well… "dries tears" I hope you all liked that. And if you didn't then I'm sorry. I must have re- wrote the ending a million times, I hope I made the right decision with that shooting star. **

**And English is not my first language, neither my second. **


End file.
